


vanilla and roses

by neonheartbeat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Rey (Star Wars), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Dysphoria, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Gender Issues, Implied Mpreg, Intersectionality, Omega Ben Solo, PULL THE TRIGGER PIGLET, female hyenas have penises so dont tell ME about how this is "unrealistic", i literally only wrote this for a friend i swear, the author swore she'd never do this again and yET
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-07 19:42:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19856992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: Ben Solo, confirmed bachelor-slash-slightly-closeted Omega, meets his firm's new design consultant, Rey Niima--who happens to be the only Alpha woman he's ever met. Tensions flare in the wake of their meeting. FEATURING: the trapped in an elevator trope! heats! some weird fucking sex shit! discussion of gender roles! slowburn...ish!





	1. a kettle, a bike, and a broken lift

**Author's Note:**

> BEN HAS A VAGINA AND REY HAS A PENIS. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.  
> Gift for the effervescently thirsty @kylofucking. Iris, you're my forever girl, babeeeey.

Ben Solo's alarm goes off at six in the morning on the dot, the series of loud, insistent rings that fade and become loud again sending a Pavlovian response through him: get up, slam feet on cold floor, grab phone, shut it off. "Jesus _Christ_."

He drags a hand through his hair. He'd barely gotten any sleep anyway, and had spent the last two hours in a vague napping twilight where he wasn't quite awake and wasn't quite over the edge of sleep. It's to be expected, since according to his tracking app _that time of the month_ is drawing near and even with the hospital-grade suppressants he's paying four hundred dollars a month for (because _of course_ the insurance provided by work only covered the cheapest and shittiest option, thank you American healthcare) he can't stave off the restlessness or the ridiculous appetite that precedes his heats.

It would have been embarrassing, even shameful, once upon a time. Now, there are like, four other male Os in the office, and nasty comments are met with a trip to HR instead of snickering behind hands. One of them is even married. There's still a bit of a don't ask, don't tell thing going on, but it's preferable to being humiliated in front of his employees, so Ben keeps his mouth shut and lets people assume.

Ben gets up and does his morning stretches in the middle of his bare bedroom floor. He thinks of himself as minimalist, but the truth is he just doesn't buy _things_ , not to decorate and not to look at. The only items in his apartment are the bare necessities. Spartan, one might call them. He likes to think of himself as Spartan. His mattress is hard (good back support), he bikes or walks to work (good exercise) and he cooks his own meals and wastes absolutely nothing.

Part of that can be blamed on his upbringing: Mom was never one for wasting anything, no matter how small. Leftovers got made into casserole, old T-shirts got made into rags. The other part can be blamed on something intrinsic about himself, but whatever that is Ben doesn't care to spend too much time thinking about.

He thinks about it anyway, looking in the mirror as he brushes his teeth and swipes a comb through his hair. It's stereotypical for someone of his designation to be overly concerned with luxury, pretty items, comfort: one might even say that those things are stereotypically _female_ , and while polls showed that the majority of Os in America (and indeed, the world at large) were female, Ben prefers to let people think he's an A and just go about their days none the wiser.

Ben can still remember the shock on his mother's face when the doctor had told her: thirteen years old, swinging his legs sitting on the edge of the pleather exam table. The pleather had been pale blue, the paper covering it scrunched up under his leg. It had left an itchy crease after they had left. _Late puberty, I think?_ Mom had said, worried, and the doctor had taken a saliva and a blood sample and smiling, had gone to check for hormone levels to soothe the fears of the worried mother in his exam room. He had not been smiling when he had come back.

 _But he can't be,_ Mom had said. _He's already taller than me. And my husband and I are both Betas._

 _Sometimes male omegas defy stereotypes,_ the doctor had said kindly. _We'll wait to make any decisions until he hits his first—well, it'll be a heat, won't it, and after that we can talk about options._

Ben does not want to think about his first heat. He opens the mirror and puts on his blocking deodorant, then his aftershave, which is supposed to mimic some kind of Alpha scent, but just smells like overly musky cologne.

Even worse, he's not gay, which brings his pool of dating options down to maybe five percent worldwide and a big fat zero taking into account his immediate social circle. Ben heads into the bedroom and throws on his work clothes: black slacks, black shoes, dark gray shirt without a tie (after all, it's casual Friday), black socks, black blazer. Straight male O's just weren't compatible with anyone but straight A women, which wasn't fair of nature in the fucking slightest, if you asked Ben Solo. There had been a chart in his highschool health class, right up there with the blood type compatibility charts in terms of layout: _AF+OM, AM+OF, BFM+BFM, BM+OF, OM+AM,_ and on and on it had gone, taking into account sexual orientations until Ben's head had spun.

His stomach growls at the same time his tracking app, Iris, pings him with a cheerful little reminder and he sighs: he's supposed to hork down at least three thousand calories a day before hitting Day One. Ben opens Iris and puts the phone on his table as he yanks out frozen pancakes and coffee and orange juice, logging everything into the little Meal Planning section. He checks his watch as he's putting the dishes into the washer, and realizes he's got time to spare, so he takes his suppressants, stashes the emergency ones in his briefcase out of force of habit (as if he's going to meet some Alpha woman on the way to work, get _real_ ) before he takes the time to pour himself some fresh drip coffee. An electric kettle was the best purchase he'd made on Amazon in ages, and he's almost offended that it's not a typical item in most homes this side of the Atlantic.

His watch buzzes, and Ben heads out the door, briefcase in hand and blazer draped over his shoulder. It won't do to be late today.

*

Rey Niima sits uncomfortably on the leather chair she'd been asked to sit in by Ms. Tico, Armitage Hux's PA. She's just as sweet as Hux is not, and makes Rey feel very overdressed: Ms. Tico wears a mustard-colored pair of jeans and a chiffon top with crescent moons printed on it, along with a green cardigan: _oh, Christ, casual Friday!_ The jet lag had gotten to her. Damn it. She smooths her own very nice Black Halo Jackie O charcoal sheath dress and fights the urge to check and see if any stray hair had made a dash out of her chignon.

Hux walks in, and she recognizes him immediately from the Skype chats they'd had. "Miss Niima! So nice to meet you at last." He shakes her hand as she stands, and tilts his head: she prays for a moment that her blockers are keeping the pheromones at bay. They must be, because he just smiles and indicates the seat. "Flight was all right?"

"Hardly," she says, smiling. "London to New York is _never_ a good time, but at least there weren't as many shrieking babies."

He chuckles and opens the portfolio containing her hefty resume and examples of her design work. "Let me just double-check. Yes, your work is impeccable. I really am glad we convinced you to come on board with us. Your help on the Blacksabre project was a lifesaver, and we desperately need new business cards."

She grins back. "Next time, don't compress the files without a way to _un-_ compress them. My pleasure."

"The other partner should be in shortly," says Hux, checking his watch. "Usually arrives directly on time, but I'm sure he won't have an issue with your work. Once he gets here, I'll show you round the office."

"We're still thinking a six month stint for me, correct?"

Hux nods absently. "Yes. You'll be our in-house IT and design consultant, salaried, full benefits for those six months, should you choose to take them—oh, and you have a place to stay, right?"

"I do," she tells him. "Not many things you can bring on a plane, but I've gotten a one bedroom flat up the block. Walking distance. And thank heavens my electric kettle fit in the bag."

There's a voice behind her, low-pitched and deep. "Finally. Someone who appreciates electric kettles."

Rey turns, smiling. "Right?" The speaker is a very tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair who's making his way in with a briefcase in one hand, and as he turns to face her and Hux all she can think is _nose_ before she's suddenly inundated with a scent like she's never smelled in her life.

He's obviously wearing blocker cologne or something, which is the only thing keeping her from losing her composure, but under it—there's, there's, oh _god_ , what the hell is it? She fights to stop herself from sniffing as Hux says something about kettles and turns another large page from her portfolio. The draft from the paper blows across her and past her to the newcomer, carrying her scent back to him, and too late she sees his nostrils flare in shock and one fist clenches down tight on the handle of his briefcase, the knuckles white.

Big knuckles. _Big_ hands, big man, big nose, what the _fuck_ is wrong with her? She can pinpoint the scent hiding under his layers of suppressants now: it's like wood smoke and amber, vanilla and citrus and something, something deeply sweet, mouthwatering, like a fresh loaf of bread being taken out of the oven, ready to devour, hot and steaming—

"Miss Niima?" Hux smiles and waves his hand. "Jet lag got you, hmm?"

"Yes, it's—yes," she says, trying desperately to regain her composure. She cannot lose her shit in this office. She _cannot._ She hasn't reacted like this to anyone in _years_ and this motherfucking guy—

Wait. _Wait._ Is this the _partner?_ Her new _boss?_

"I haven't introduced myself," says the other man, walking around the desk with his shoulders slightly hunched. She gets a better look at his face: long, serious, slightly gloomy-looking, freckled with moles, strong nose, high cheekbones, wide full mouth. The only weak thing about his face is his jawline, which seems to connect directly to his ears. He _can't_ be an O, he's too fucking _big_. "I'm Ben Solo, co-CEO of Galaxy Initiatives." He holds out his hand almost as if he's afraid of her, and against her better judgment she takes it, giving him a firm handshake.

Ben Solo's palms are clammy, and his eyes are dilated so wide the color could be anything from blue to brown. There's a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He drops her hand and backs away slightly, then looks down at her portfolio. "Hux always chooses the best tech people," he says, eyes darting up at her, practically begging her to take the compliment. She can almost taste the desperation in the room, and Hux, being a perfectly nondescript B, has _no idea_ what is happening right now in his office.

"Thank you," she says, and notes the sag of relief in his shoulders. _Oh, god. Get me back on the plane, right now. Right now._ Heat's stirring behind her eyes, in her gut: she _cannot_ do this, not _now,_ not when she just got this contract—

"I'll let Ben show you around the office, then," says Armitage brightly, completely oblivious to the tension between the two of them as he stands up. "Got a meeting at nine and there's hardly anyone about, 'cept for Rose. You know where her new office is?"

"I—yes. Yep. Sure do." Ben tears his eyes away from Rey and nods stiffly.

"Great! See you around noon." Hux strides on out the door, and the moment it clicks shut Ben backs away, into the farthest corner he can while Rey does the same, face hot with embarrassment and fear. _No!_ she wants to scream. _Don't leave us in here, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen!_

"Oh, my god, Mr. Solo, I am so, so sorry—" she starts, as he fumbles with his briefcase and it falls open. His huge hands are trembling, sorting through the papers. "If I'd known—"

" _Not_ your fault," he rasps, voice gone to shit, and pulls out a BlocPen, jabbing the red end against the scent glands on his throat and slamming his thumb down on the green end to inject the emergency blocker into his body. Rey winces in sympathy, and almost protests the loss of the delicious scent: the blockers wipe out the pheromones like detergent poured over a kitchen floor, and soon all she can smell is the lemony air freshener in the corner. 

"I don't—I don't have any," she stammers, wringing her hands as he puts the BlocPen back into his briefcase. "I—I'm on blockers, I mean, but I—I haven't met a male O in _years,_ literally years, I didn't think there was a need—"

"Better safe than sorry, I guess," he says, running a hand through his mop of black hair. He looks up, and she sees his eyes are brown: rich and warm. "It's not you, yours aren't failing or anything." There's a big huff of air out his nose, something that would be called a snort if he'd done it with any more force. "I'm due to start in about a week. Nose gets extra sensitive. I'll just. I'll just take time off work. If I have to."

Rey can't believe she's mucked up this badly. "God, no, you're the CEO, I'll—I'll find a drugstore and get extra strength deodorant or something. You shouldn't have to miss work on my account."

He looks exhausted. "It'll only be a few days. No big deal."

"I'll—I will just find my office on my own, then." She takes a tentative step forward. "I'm so sorry. Again."

"Down the hall. Second door on the left. Window." He seems to be breathing in very short bursts, through his mouth. "You're the first female A I've ever met, actually."

Somehow that's more jarring than anything that's happened yet today. "Oh, Christ," she says, horrified, and rushes for the door.

*

Why had he _said_ that?

Ben leans on the counter in the unisex restroom, hands shaking. Why the _fuck_ had he said that to this woman, this woman he doesn't even _know_ apart from 1) she's British 2) she shares his affinity for electric kettles and 3) she's a fucking Alpha: what is _wrong_ with him?

He'd downed every emergency hormone pill they'd had at the desk, and they'd done nothing at all. It was almost ten and going back into Hux's office was still like stepping into the perfume department at Macy's, except Chanel No. 5 didn’t make him want to rip his clothes off and spread his legs for a woman he doesn't fucking know.

Not that she smelled like Chanel No. 5. No, Miss Niima smelled like rose, like warm spicy earth, like sweet berries and honey and cream, and he's wet and tender between his thighs, down where he hates himself the most. _Fuck,_ he thinks miserably, staring at his wrecked reflection in the mirror. It doesn't help, and his college biology book keeps flashing through his mind, the shit about how male omegas and female alphas had _atypical genitalia_ , complete with those stupid drawings of legs in the air with diagrams: _pseudopenis, gonads, pseudovagina, anus_. Then the female, which had made the girl sitting next to him snort in disgust as the professor had intoned, pointing on the board: _psuedopenis (enlarged clitoris), urethra, anus._ Ben had sat very quietly in his cloud of blockers and suppressants and listened to some jackass behind him shout, _so these freaks have mixed-up junk?_

He'd never seen a naked woman in his life, let alone a naked alpha woman: he was thirty years old and had committed himself to dying a virgin and then _fucking Rey Niima_ had come swanning into his orbit and now he'd never be able to live wanting forever what he couldn't have.

How the fuck was she even an alpha? She stood at five-seven at the most, and she was slight and wiry and had a big wide beautiful smile and sparkling hazel eyes and freckles and—

Ben's dick twitches, still as rock hard and aching as it had been five minutes ago, and he gulps in air, desperately trying to keep himself from rubbing one out at work into the sink in the unisex bathroom like some kind of pervert. _Stop thinking about her. Stop._

He has to get out of here. He has to go home and order pizza and bury himself under his duvet and not come out for a week until this shit's over and he can think clearly. How the hell was he supposed to have known it would hit him so hard?

Ben flexes his thighs until the ache between his legs ebbs away and splashes his face with water before making a beeline for the elevator. He'll be fine once he bikes home. He'll be fine.

*

Rey's just stepped into the lift and is thumbing the button for the lobby before a hand forces the door open and suddenly Ben Solo is shouldering his way in, looking really, _really_ bad, and he only realizes she's standing in there when his nose catches up to his eyes and the doors have already shut.

"Shit," he says hoarsely, and backs away, into the corner of the tiny box. "I'm sorry. I thought it was empty."

He looks so miserable that Rey knows he's being truthful. "It's fine," she says. "My old gran used to douse a hanky in vinegar and hold it to her nose. Said there was no better home remedy for someone about to—well, she called it _go nutty_ , but that was in the old days."

He makes a short, light sound that might be a laugh. "Vinegar. I'll try it."

Rey spies the briefcase in his hand. "You—you're going home?" Their offices are on the fifty-third floor. This is the longest lift ride Rey has ever taken in her life. "That bad?"

"Yes, that bad," he says shortly, taking very shallow breaths through his mouth. The digital readout is counting down, _50…49…48…_ "Should've. Stairs."

"I want you to know, I _will_ be buying blocker deodorant and wearing it when you're, ah, recovered," she says quickly, eyes fixed on the descending numbers. This building must have been built in the fifties: the lift creaks with every floor they pass.

"It's not. Your. Fault," he says, sounding worse with every word. She gives him a quick look and sees he's wedged himself into the corner of the lift so tightly she might have to call the fire department to pry him out when they get to the lobby. "Miss Niima."

"Just one of those things," she says quickly, tearing her eyes away from his shoulders. His scent is really getting strong. The blockers must have worn off, and if the blockers have worn off this fast, he's _close_ to going into heat. Like, a matter of hours, close, and obviously that wouldn't have been the case if she had just responsibly worn stronger fucking blocking deodorant. "A, what do you call it. Um. An unlucky coincidence."

Ben's fished an honest-to-God handkerchief out of his pocket and he's holding it to his nose, cheeks red over the white cotton. She hadn't thought men actually carried hankies anymore. "I'll be okay once I get into the fresh air," he says, muffled and strained through the cloth. "I'll bike home. Four blocks down. Two to the left. Number 2B."

"Are you going to be able to travel in your condition?" she asks, eyeing up the way every muscle is tense.

"If I can't, I'll call a cab."

She shakes her head. "You'll send every alpha between here and your apartment into a frenzy. You'll cause a riot."

He snorts. "Nah, they—they're all—don't want to mess with me. Too big."

She has to smile. "Yeah, most alphas I meet wouldn't want to mess with you. You're bigger than they are."

Ben raises his head, and that's when the lift grinds to a halt, the flickering digital numbers reading between floors twenty-seven and twenty-eight.

"Oh, shit," says Rey, frozen. "Shit. Mr. Solo. Don't panic."

He slides to the floor, trembling and flushed, the scent of him thickening and enveloping her. "Please," he begs, lips trembling. "Oh, god. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

She holds one hand in front of her crotch instinctively, hiding the situation that's quickly making itself known under her double-layered underwear. "Don't," she says, voice tense. "Just. Just try to breathe." Even that's terrible advice, because the lift is full of her scent, and there's hardly any recirculated air in here anyway.

Ben lets out a whimper and slams his hand against the elevator wall, cheek pressed flat against it. "Out," he gasps. "Out. I have to get _out_."

"Someone will notice it's been stopped," she says desperately, looking around: don't American lifts have hatches on top or something? Or is that just made up for films? "We're going to be okay, Mr. Solo." Sweet vanilla and smoke, that dusky, delicious smell: it's filling up her brain, toying with her control, making her want to take him on the floor, take him _now_ : every atom of her body craves it, but she's gone through this before and she can control herself. He hasn’t. She has to be the responsible one.

Rey backs into the far corner and slides to the floor. She has to pull her knees up to her chest, because Ben's taking up three-quarters of the lift all on his own. "We're gonna get through this," she pants. "Tell me—tell me about your family or something."

"My family?" Ben raises his head: in the fluorescents, he looks sallow; the circles under his eyes magnified.

"Yeah. Or—I don't know, your childhood or something, a dog you had. Just tell me. _Tell me._ " The unconscious command born of desperation echoes through her throat, and Ben's ears twitch.

He snaps to attention at once, unable to stop himself. "I—I had, my dad had a dog, named him Chewie. Biggest, shaggiest monster. Yowled all the time. My mom pretended she hated him, but she loved him. Sneaked him treats."

"I had a cat. Dossie." Rey smiles. "Gray and white and fluffy. She would curl on your lap and purr like a little motor was inside her. She really belonged to Gran, but I thought of her as mine."

Ben gives a strangled little laugh. "Bet your parents liked that."

"Didn't have any parents. Gran was the only family I ever had." Rey leans her head against the back of the lift. "Then I moved to London."

The lights in the elevator go out, flickering, and the last thing Rey sees is Ben's panicked face before they're plunged into darkness. He whimpers like a frightened child, and everything in her years to comfort him, to hold him, to—

"I'm not going to touch you," she assures him with some difficulty, trying to keep herself in the corner. "I'm not."

"Shouldn't have. Waited. This long." His voice has gone breathy and low, sending shivers through Rey's spine.

She fights to keep the conversation at arm's length. He smells so, so good. "Don't you have a girlfriend or someone you can call to help you?"

Ben huffs in the dark. "Don't have. Girlfriend. Not, not compatible with, um, Beta women or other O women, or, uh. Yeah." There's a shift of fabric, and Rey struggles to control herself. "I'm s-sorry," he groans, and the heavy, thick scent of him washes over her.

"Don't, don't," Rey begs, pressing herself into the wall. She can only imagine what he's doing. "Tell me—tell me why you're not compatible with beta women. Huh? You can—you can fight past it. You just have to think. Just talk to me, and we—we won't do anything we'll regret later."

There's a deep, shuddering breath two feet from her face, and a sharp movement of flesh on fabric. Ben sounds as if he's barely keeping it together. "C-can't, can't, the—physical shit, the f-fuck, the, the, doesn't work."

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, as if that's going to block out any more of his scent. "I've never—I've never slept with, um, an omega male. Just females. And some beta guys. What—what's the physical shit?"

Ben chokes out a little whine and there's a thump: he must have bumped his head against the wall. "Th-the, you know, the fucking—" There's a gulp of air, and he groans. "S-s-pseudovagina. And I don't." He sounds like he might cry, and Rey tamps down the impulse to cradle him in her arms. "I don't. Penis. Not—not—can't penetrate."

"Oh, okay," says Rey, holding her sleeve to her nose. "I understand. That's fine." Her mind races for something to talk about, anything that will keep them from tearing each other's clothes off in this lift: _as long as I keep talking everything will be okay._ "I did a couple of courses in uni about human sexuality studies and gender studies, it was for an anthropology major—um, I didn't end up majoring in Anthro, of course, went to design and software shit instead but, um, one of the things we talked about was how genitals don't define your gender. I did have a friend who transitioned from male to female; she was an omega. She used to joke that she saved money on bottom surgery by being born already with half the right equipment, and that God just got distracted making her and didn't flip the Female switch."

"I'd. I've. Considered. Reconstructive." Ben squirms against the wall: she can hear the rasp of fabric. How long is it going to take the bloody security to find them? The emergency lighting finally kicks on, a reddish-orange glow along the floor, and Rey can see Ben sweating like crazy against the wall with one hand clutching his hair tight. "Don't. Don't tell anyone."

"Not in a million years," says Rey firmly.

"I'm a fucking joke," he wheezes, his hand trailing out of his hair and making its way between his legs. "I'm sorry. Last thing you want is t-to be stuck in a fucking elevator with a freak."

"You're not a freak," Rey says with some heat. "You're _not_."

"I am a six foot three man with, at worst, the genitals of a _woman_ and at best pseudogenitalia," he grinds out between his teeth. "I am a walking joke."

"For your information, beta woman and men are born every day with micropenises and enlarged clitorises and we don't call _those_ 'pseudo-genitals'," she informs him. "You have _real_ genitals as much as I do. I don't think of my junk as a pseudo-anything, I've got a cock and it belongs to me, so it's just as real as a beta man's penis. You don't have a woman's genitals, you have _your_ genitals, and you're a man, so you have a man's genitals."

"H-how big," Ben manages, sweating like a sinner in church.

"How big is what?"

"Your. Your." His eyes flicker across her and back down, his hands shaking. "Forget I asked. I'm sorry. Not. Not appropriate. Where the _fuck_ is security?"

"I'm sure they're on their way," Rey says. "We've only been here for about five minutes."

"I'm pretty sure it's been an eternity, actually," says Ben, and rests his head against the wall. "I have never in my life had. A heat. Come on. This fast."

"My fault. I sent you into it." Rey wishes she'd just bloody bought the stupid deodorant. "I've done it once before when I was nineteen. Walked into college and sent a girl into a heat so bad she started—well, you might not do what she did, but I felt so bad I sent her a fruit basket."

Ben tries to breathe without breathing, which doesn't work, as expected. "You—are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Might hit a rut, but I have very good suppressants for those."

"Had to privately buy mine," he tells her, tugging at his collar. "Insurance here is shit. And what do you know. They still don't work."

She grins. "God save the NHS. Did you walk here or bike?"

"Biked," he says roughly, his big fingers interlocking as if in prayer.

Rey nods. "Health-conscious, I see. Cardio? Good."

The word _good_ sweeps across Ben like waves on a beach, and before Rey can react or move he's stiffening at the waist and his mouth is open in shock and in the reddish glow of the emergency lights she can see twin dark wet spots on his chest, soaking through his gray shirt. " _No_ ," he gasps, and reaches up to press his palms flat to his chest. "Shit, what, _shit_ —"

Rey gapes in horror. "Oh, my god, I am so sorry—"

There's a banging on the door, and Ben sort of flops over, pressing his body to the cold metal like it's a lifeline out. "Help!" he shouts, hoarse and wrecked.

" _Don't worry, there was a breaker failure and the elevator died. Is there a medical emergency?"_

Rey stands on shaking knees. "There's a medical situation," she calls, trying to be discreet. "The sooner you get us into fresh air the better, _please!_ "

" _Yes, ma'am, you sit tight."_

"They're supposed to have recirculated air," Ben pants, dragging his blazer tight over his chest to hide the wet spots. "They never fucking fixed it."

"I'll take care of it," says Rey, looking down at him, and he practically melts into the rough carpet. She can almost hear the corny lines from those old novels Gran had kept in the attic that she'd found one rainy day. _Yes, Alpha, take care of me._ Nobody actually talked like that, but damn if Ben Solo didn't look like he was thinking it.

The elevator begins a slow descent, the lights coming back up, and Rey makes Ben hold his breath before she helps him to his feet and straightens his blazer, buttoning it to hide the stained shirt. "You just keep your head up," she orders, and he obeys, looking every bit the CEO he is in spite of the feverish face and sweat.

The doors open to the lobby, and blessed fresh air rushes in as they both stumble out, dazed and blinking. "No," says Rey quickly to the rescue team, "we don’t need an ambulance. Mr. Solo's ill and needs to go home at once."

Ben's already staggering for the door, past the revolving glass, out into the street where the bikes are lined up: Rey rushes after him and saves him when he tries to mount his bicycle and almost falls off, nearly in tears from how tender he is. "You can't sit a bike," she says firmly. "Come on. I'll call you a cab."

"Don't send me alone," he almost begs, gripping the bike with two absurdly large hands. " _Don't_ send me out alone—"

"I won't," she promises. "I've got a good hour for my lunch break. I'll—I'll take you home and make sure you're settled."

"Thank you," he gasps, and a cab pulls up as Rey hails it.

*

Ben staggers into his apartment, yanking off his blazer, his shoes, his socks. He'd meant to tidy up the kitchen before the worst of it hit, but that was not meant to be. He'd also wanted to get some last minute shopping done, some laundry washed, some takeout ordered.

The only thing he wants _now_ is for Rey to bend him over the back of his sofa and fuck him until he's sated and full of her, even though at the same time he's desperate not to look a fool in front of a fucking _employee_. A high-ranking employee, but an employee nonetheless, who's just standing in his apartment like a human perfume bottle right now, looking at him with pity in her eyes as he gingerly sits on the couch.

Everything is so fucking swollen and tender and burning. Why is it so _bad_? Is this what omega women go through every month? He wouldn't know: male alphas do nothing for him.

Rey is going through his fridge, in full caretaker mode. "You need to eat. Do you have enough water? I can order you a pizza or some Chinese. Is this enough for you?"

"It's fine," he croaks. He just wants to take his clothes off and die. "Fine."

"This one'll be bad," she warns, looking ashamed of herself. "If it's anything like what happened to Kay, you'll be out of commission for a full week."

"I have sick time," he rasps, trying to remember where he last put the lube.

"Okay. I'll leave you my number. If you have to go to hospital, let me know." She scrawls out something on a post-it and leaves it on his fridge. "Good luck."

Ben's so close to begging her to stay, but he can't get the words out, and she's gone already, out the door as it shuts behind her.

He staggers to the couch and yanks off his clothes, layer by layer until he's naked, and then he makes his way into the bathroom and turn on the water as cold as it can go, shoving himself under the spray and shivering his way through a lukewarm orgasm he brings on by rubbing the palm of his hand against his swollen, stiff dick, just to take the edge off.

When Ben had been probably fifteen, he'd gotten his hands on some fairly vanilla beta porn and stared in envy at the man's penis almost as long as he'd stared at the woman's enormous fake boobs. _I should look like that_ , he remembered thinking. _I want that_. Instead, he'd gone through life under a haze of suppressants and blockers, pretending he was a beta or an alpha, and not once had he ever, ever allowed a single woman to come close enough to touch him, let alone see him naked.

His nipples are puffy and pink when he's done in the shower, and he hates that too: he'd known lactation was a side effect sometimes of heats regardless of sex (after all, as long as prolactin levels are high enough, anything's possible) and he'd been smug about the lack of it for years. Not so anymore. He brings a cautious finger to his right nipple and stifles a whine as the tender bud of flesh leaks more thin white fluid down his chest. "Fuck," he spits, and rinses off.

Ben has maybe ten minutes before he loses his mind, so he drags himself back into the kitchen, wolfs down as much food as he can stand to swallow (his phone is still insistently and gently reminding him that he needs calories) before flopping down onto his bed, ass in the air and knees apart.

 _If I cry loud enough maybe she'll come back,_ he thinks, and the thought is so tantalizing he has to physically put a hand over his mouth to stifle the keening as warm slick dribbles down his thighs, cooling on his hot skin.

Where the fuck is that—that toy, that thing he'd bought off Amazon—

Ben slides his body forward and digs through the bedside drawer. There's the lube, which he won't need at this point, judging by the amount of natural lubrication coating his inner thighs, and there's the toy. It's not battery-powered, it's operated with an air pump, and even though he has never used it, never _needed_ to use any toy before, he finds himself rolling onto his back, hands trembling as he shoves the flexible plastic object between his legs, back behind his pathetic little dick, back into…

"Oh, _shit_ ," he chokes, one leg locked straight and foot trembling. He's never put anything inside himself before apart from a curious finger when he was in college, and this is—this is not a finger. He could almost imagine it's Rey, her brown hair tumbling across her shoulders as she holds him steady, braces herself, splits him open.

Ben can't help it. He shoves the toy in all the way, and his body clamps around it, reveling in the intrusion: he's disgusted at himself, somewhere deep down inside under the layers of hormone-induced haze. More slick gushes out, staining the sheets he hadn't bothered making up that morning, and he balls his free hand into a fist and stuffs it into his mouth, biting down hard on his knuckles with a cry.

It goes from being almost too much to not enough at all, and he rips his hand out of his mouth and slaps his palm around on the sheets, finding the little rubber ball that pumps air into the toy because if he doesn't get some kind of fucking knot in the next two seconds he might actually explode. He squeezes frantically, in time with his thumping heart, _one-two one -two_ , and the toy swells up at the base, mimicking nature and stilling his panicked thrashing for a minute.

Only a minute, though, and the burn doesn't go away before the thing deflates and Ben shouts in fury, flinging it across the room. Useless piece of shit. _I'll just fucking use my hands!_

He's crawling around looking for it again five minutes later when a second wave hits him so hard he almost vomits, everything too tender to the touch, and all he can do is cry and lie on his back and wait for it to just be fucking over.

*

"Mr. Solo's still not in?" Rey sets her items down on her new desk: she's fond of succulents and likes to be organized.

"No, ma'am," says one of the runners. "Out sick."

It's been almost a full week. Rey wonders if she might have to go over after all: if he's still not in the office it could be even worse than she'd thought. He'd texted her once, yesterday: _please come_ followed by a very quick _disregard prev text_. She hadn't replied back, but maybe she should have.

At least this mess had taught her to double up on blockers. She smelled like a chemical plant to her own nose, but at least nobody else was going to be sent into heat on her account. Rey sighs and picks her phone up, debating with herself for a minute before opening the conversation.

_Hey. Doing better? Should I drop by after work today?_

There's no response, just a little check to let her know he's seen the message. She sighs. Well, at least he got it. Down goes the phone, and back to work it is.

She'd liked Ben Solo even before she'd gotten a whiff of him: what other American in a thousand miles owned an electric kettle? A pity it had all gone to shit.

Her phone buzzes suddenly, and Rey picks it up. It's a text from Ben. _Please._

She texts back. _Should I bring anything?_

A text bubble with three blinking dots appears, disappears, appears, and disappears. Then he sends another text: _Food. Door'll be unlocked._

Rey has to smile. Poor man. She knew the junk in his fridge wouldn't last long. _You got it. See you round five._

*

She opens his door at ten past five holding two plastic bags: one of pad thai and one of groceries and she is immediately hit by his scent. Thankfully, it's mostly covered up by the blockers by now, and she can only smell it under a thick coating of sweat and stale body odor. "Ben?"

"Sorry," comes the distant answer from the back of the flat. "I'm in the bedroom."

He sounds exhausted, but lucid. Rey puts the food on the counter and makes her way back to the bedroom door, slightly ajar, tentatively. "Should I keep my distance?"

"No, I think I'm okay."

She peers around the door and her eyes widen in shock. Ben's lying on his side, a fluffy duvet heaped up around him like a burrito so that all she can see is his face, which has lost color except for the red rims of his eyes. The room reeks of a heat just past: unwashed body, sweat, slick. "Jesus. You look like death warmed over."

"Smell like it, too," he says faintly.

Rey puts her hands on her hips. "I'm going to get you a glass of water. You're going to drink it, and after that you're going to shower."

"Yes, ma'am," Ben says, pushing himself up to a sitting position, still wrapped in his bedclothes. He winces. "Can't stand."

"You want me to help you?" She knows she shouldn't touch him, shouldn't go near him: even if the heat is over the last thing she wants is to be sent into a frenzy from the smell of him, but he looks so pathetic and small and helpless. _Don't be stupid. He's enormous. He's fine._

"I've got it," he says tightly, and slides off the bed, taking slow, tentative steps to the bathroom. "Sorry you had to see me like this."

"It's my fault anyway. Don't worry about it." Rey heads back to the kitchen and finds a clean glass, filling it up from the tap and going back into the toilet, where Ben's shedding layers of blankets one by one, leaving his upper half exposed as he sits on the edge of the tub.

Oh. Huh. Big. Yes. Rey averts her eyes. "Water," she says, trying to figure out how to talk past the sudden dryness in her throat. "Drink it."

He takes the glass and gulps down the contents, his pale throat bobbing, and she steals a glance at his body, visible only above the waist. His skin has the pallor of someone who's spent too long in the dark, like a mushroom or a strange bioluminescent fungus, dotted with moles and freckles. Both his nipples look raw and chafed, and she remembers with a burst of clarity the episode in the lift, leaking through his shirt.

Not that she'd _not_ been thinking about The Lift for the past week. Definitely not. She also definitely had not been jerking off thinking about it, or burying her face in the clothes she'd worn in there and refusing to wash them because his scent still clung to them. Nope. Not her.

"You want some cream for those?" she asks automatically, and he looks up, then down.

"Oh. Yeah. Please."

Rey digs through her purse and pulls out the tub of Vaseline she bought at the airport to keep her lips soft in the dry New York winter. "Use this. Little movements, not too rough." She hands it to him, and he just holds it, eyes gone slightly glassy. "Do you… Ben, do you want me to do it?"

His eyes flicker up to hers, and he nods once before averting his eyes, a blotchy flush settling on his cheeks and large ears, down his throat and across his chest.

Rey takes the pot of Vaseline and squats in front of him, close enough to touch him, before dipping her finger into the jelly and rubbing thumb to forefinger. "It might be sensitive. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he says, but he goes loose all over anyway when she gently rubs the stuff across his chafed, cracked right nipple. A small whine escapes his throat, and he tamps it down, choking it off and gripping the edge of the tub. " _Fine_ ," he gasps.

"There's no shame in needing help—"

He jerks away from her, hands shaking as he takes the jar himself. "I'll do it," he mutters, chest heaving. "I shouldn't have asked you. I'm—"

"If you say you're sorry one more time I might throw you out the window," Rey snaps. "Don't be sorry. You can't help it—"

"I could if I just fucking tried harder," he rasps, his head hanging down, greasy locks of hair plastered to his ears and cheeks. "I could. I _could_ —"

Rey shakes her head. "It's _life_ , Ben. You can't help your heats any more than I can help—I don't know, getting awkward erections at parties: sometimes people just run into someone they're hyper-compatible with and can't help their reactions."

Ben shakes his head. "Yeah. That soulmate shit everyone's always going on about." He peers up at her. "Do you believe in soulmates?"

Rey shakes her head. "I had a friend who was _super_ compatible with her boyfriend, everything was fireworks and amazing sex, you know—but he was a grade A wanker who threw her phone into the Thames because she dared to text her _brother_ on a Saturday night. She couldn't get away from him and she didn't want to, and it ended in him almost strangling her outside a bar and getting arrested. She still visits him every week in prison. If that's a soulmate, I'm glad to be single."

Ben abruptly stands, and suddenly the bathroom feels twice as small. "I'm—shower," he says thickly, and drops the towel with his back to her before stepping into the glass-walled cubicle, shielding his body from view with one big hand. Rey looks away out of courtesy.

"You want me to stay in here?"

"Might need help getting dressed." The words are muffled, the man behind the glass a shadow.

"Okay. I'll be right back. I'll just go put the groceries away."

*

Ben lets hot water slough off the grease and grime and filth on his body, both hands pressed to the wall as he tries very hard not to cry.

 _I must still be on the tail end,_ he thinks, hands shaking on the tile. _I don't cry._ The water is as hot as it can go, but feels cool to his skin: he must still be running a fever.

He's _not_ upset she doesn't believe in soulmates. He's not. Really. The emotional reaction is just stupid fucking hormones playing at him, some biological drive to find a mate has taken the wheel and the real Ben, the controlled Spartan CEO, is in the back seat shouting to just fucking slow down already. He's not _really_ angry. He's just… he's just going to go down the checklist.

She hadn't needed to come over with food to take care of him, but she had done it. Rey is _kind._

She studied gender and sex in college and she's got strong opinions; she felt awful about sending a girl into heat and sent her a gift as an apology. Rey is _compassionate._

She's a brilliant software designer and graphic artist to boot: Rey is _smart_ and _talented_ with a good secure job: she doesn't need Galaxy to make a living.

 _You're not a freak_ , she'd said. Rey is _accepting_.

He can't help it: he knows it's gross and weird and probably crosses a few boundaries somewhere but he reaches down and thrusts two of his own fingers into himself, trembling, mouthing _Rey, Rey_ against the cool tile until he wrings one last colorless gasp of a climax out of his body and sinks to his knees, head bowed as the water rushes across his head.

*

Rey turns in the kitchen at the sound of a soft footstep. Ben is standing there with a towel held in front of his crotch, red-cheeked. "Sorry. Finished early." The flush deepens.

"That's all right," she says, and sets the eggs she bought on the table. "Have you got a pair of loose pants?"

"Yeah. Just. Too lightheaded to bend over." He looks miserably embarrassed. "I don't—I don't make a habit out of letting my coworkers come over and dress me."

"Good to know I'm special," she teases lightly, and he ducks his head in shame. "Come along. I'll help you."

He leads her to the bedroom, where he's tried to tidy the place up and opened a window: it smells much fresher in here and the wintry city air drifts across the floor. Rey's arms raise up in gooseflesh as she picks up the soft gray jersey pants (seriously, is everything this guy owns gray or black?) and helps him sit, kneeling at his feet and tugging the pants up his calves.

He drops the towel trying to help her, and _then_ she gets an eyeful of—

"Shit," he says sounding panicked. "I'm—"

"It's fine!" she hastens to say, averting her eyes. "I won't—I won't look if you don't—"

"It's, it's—" 

"It's fine," Rey repeats firmly, pulling his pants up. "I've seen naked people before, you know."

"Not like _me_ ," he says in a somewhat dismal little voice, hands flexing on his thigh.

"Well, you've never seen anyone like me naked either, so we're even. If you're a weirdo then so'm I."

"We are not even," says Ben, his hand still working at his thigh.

"Oh, how's that?"

"I haven't seen _you_ naked," he says, and claps his free hand over his mouth. "Shit. Please do not—don't—don't, just forget I said that—"

Rey holds her wrist to his head. "I think you've still got a bit of a fever," she says. "Let me just—" She leans forward, her lips pressed to his forehead, and Ben goes very still under her. "Yes, you're running warm. I'll make you some tea and—broth, and after that maybe an omelette."

He tries for one last gasp at cordiality. "Miss Niima, I'm sor—"

"Window. You. I mean it. No more apologizing." She turns for the kitchen.

~

Ben has never been kissed by a woman who wasn't his mother in his life. He can almost feel the imprint of Rey's lips on his forehead, the slight brush of her fingers as she'd swept away the locks of freshly-washed hair: warm and soft and firm. _Please_ , he wants to beg, _come back. Do it again._

He wants her to do far more than kiss him. He wants her to do things he's afraid to admit even to himself: it's like being around her has woken up some shameful part of him that he'd buried long ago. Mechanically, he sips at the tea she made, and the broth after that. It's chicken soup out of a can, but she'd chopped up some green onions and carrots and thrown them in, and he had to admit the flavor was greatly improved.

"Your omelette," she announces, and sets a plate in front of him. His empty stomach growls at the smells of Gruyere and bacon, and he devours the thing without a knife as she watches. _She's so good. So good to me. She didn't have to come here but she did and she made me food and she's taking care of me—_

He snaps himself out of that train of thought: that's a path he can't afford to go down. That's how uninterested alphas end up stalked by obsessed omegas who can't accept a _no_ and excuse it with "but it's BIOLOGY" as if biology was ever concerned with morality. Hadn't there been a murder like that just last month in Queens? Yeah, he remembers now: it had been an omega woman who had gone after a married alpha man; she'd carved his name into her leg and followed him home, convinced he was leaving his wife for her because he'd made eye contact in a Whole Foods once—then she'd broken into his house while he wasn't at home and the wife, panicking, had killed her with a kitchen knife.

No. That is not a place he can go, not ever. He looks down at the empty plate in front of him. "Thank you for doing this," he says.

"No problem. I feel like, you know, I'm to blame anyway, so. Might as well." She's moving around the kitchen, cleaning up.

He does feel more clear-headed. The food probably helped. "What got you into graphic design and IT?"

Rey smiles. "Oh, you know. I'd always been into art, and—I think I must have switched majors five times. Interior designer, art, mathematics, engineering—"

"That's got to be the strangest combination I've ever heard," says Ben. "What does engineering have in common with art?"

"Engineering has _everything_ in common with art." Rey raises her chin a little. "Something properly engineered is a work of art. Beauty is _math_ : you've got the golden ratio and symmetry and that's how we perceive beauty. Anyway I got into graphic design because I like working with computers and I like art, and I'm good at it, too."

"You are," he agrees.

"What did you major in?"

"Economics, finances. Very boring."

"It's not boring. Math is interesting." She grins. "Besides, you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and who's going to say _that's_ boring?"

He raises a shoulder and lowers it. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I should have gone a different way."

"Different major?"

He shakes his head. "Different life choices. I don't know. Maybe it's all this shit in society saying people like me shouldn't be in the workplace, that I should be raising kids, staying at home."

She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Tell me about it. Had a professor inform me that for my own good I should get reassignment surgery and hormone blockers because 'people like me' were better off passing as beta."

"Jesus. What did you say to that?"

"Told him if he wanted to cut my dick off he could do it himself if he thought he was man enough." Ben snorts. "But seriously, there's people who think female As and male Os are total freaks of nature. Like, that one militant Catholic group, the Knights of St. Agatha—and Vanguard Purity, and all those assholes. We've got to fight to exist. We have to be _proud_ of who we are and wipe all that hetero-beta-normative shit out of our heads and start with a blank slate."

He rests his chin on his hand. "You should have gone into politics."

"I'm not nearly polite enough for politics," she says, smiling. "Especially not in England. Lord."

"I think American politics are much worse," says Ben. "We just elected the first female alpha senator, here in New York, and her house got vandalized about two months back. All kinds of hateful shit." He's warming to her rapidly: he _likes_ this woman and her firecracker attitude, even if it's a bit radical for him.

"You think that's bad? We had a Labour minister get pelted with cow shit because he spoke out against forced reassignment surgeries being covered by the NHS."

"It's legal here to send your kids to _conversion therapy_ camps in the middle of nowhere, and in something like thirty-eight states Medicare and Medicaid doesn't cover blockers."

She raises her hands in surrender. "You beat me. America is truly a desolate wasteland of regressive norms."

Ben has to laugh. "Do you—want to go to dinner sometime? Not—not a date, not if you don't want it to be. I just. I don't have a lot of friends."

Rey considers that for a moment. "Yeah. I'd—I'd like that."

Ben Solo, thirty years old, has asked a woman out to dinner for the first time in his life, and under the counter he clenches his fingers tight into a fist of triumph.


	2. hold you down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: transphobic remarks in flashback form, some body issues, etc.

It's been three months since Ben and Rey have started going to dinner together, teetering constantly on the brink of dating but _not_ dating, not really.

Sitting in her still half-unpacked flat on a Saturday morning, Rey thinks she might actually explode from frustration. She's been in two friends-with-benefits type things with men before, and seriously dated exactly one woman: the former had ended in disaster when it turned out one of the guys just had a fetish for women with penises and the _other_ guy was an extremely closeted gay man who'd let it all out and cried on her shoulder after six months.

She'd set him up with her friend Finn and they were still together, thank god. She still followed them on Instagram and every month it seemed like they were on a new adventure. Finn and Poe hiking through the Highlands. Finn and Poe eating at a pub. Finn and Poe gushing about a planned trip to Portugal. She wasn't upset about them being together, and she'd given Poe an earful about being honest and transparent in the future. He had taken it to heart and apologized.

That doesn't mean she's not still slightly bitter about being used as fetish material or being reduced to what was between her legs. She's still a _woman_ , a woman with a penis, sure, but a _woman_. It's hard dating, and here's the perfect man for her, dropped in her lap and they're still dancing around the topic of sex.

She can't get the visual image of his naked body out of her head. It had been just a glance, and he had still been swollen and flushed dark red with his heat, but oh, God, he'd been beautiful. His cute little prick, about two and a half inches long half-hard, just begging to be sucked: the folds leading back between his legs under a dusting of coarse dark curls. She hadn't gotten a look at that close enough to make a judgement, but the anticipation of spreading his massive thighs apart and taking him is enough to make her toes curl.

He would let her do it. He would. He's desperate, he's barely been touched _ever_ : even when they go out to eat and they shake hands at the end of the night he blushes. _I'd have to be gentle. Careful. I'd have to make it really good for him, because I'd be his first._ She'd start by stroking him gently, with her thumb, up and down until he was ready to open his legs for her—she'd slip _just_ her thumb in, and maybe he'd make that delicious whimpering noise again for her.

Rey slips off the stepladder she's been using to organize her bookshelves and presses a hand to her abdomen. She's hard, straining through the fabric of her underwear just thinking about him. He's probably about a day or so into his heat; they'd agreed to keep their distance for the week prior every month, especially since he has a lot to catch up on at work and can't afford to lose the days. Ben hadn't texted her all day, and she's a bit testy about it: _not_ talking to him is almost worse than being in his proximity. She'd doused herself in clinical-strength blocker deodorant for the past ten days and he'd kept himself holed up in his office: everything has been going just fine except for the fact that every molecule in her body is screaming at her to just fuck him already.

Would he even _like_ her if he did? Rey hurries into the bedroom and gives herself a long, hard look in the mirror: mouth too wide, but the rest is all right. There's that tiny scar on her cheek from the fight she got into in high school: the freckles are a plus now, but they weren't when she was young.

She quickly strips and gives herself another critical examination. She is female, so she does have breasts, but they're small and underdeveloped with pale flat nipples: _her_ body isn't made for bearing children. Hips: narrow, waist, trim, arms and legs more muscular than most women, but certainly not overmuch so on her small frame.

Below her navel is a soft dusting of light brown hair, trailing down to the thicker stuff between her legs: she gave up waxing years ago and just keeps everything trimmed down. And there; jutting out from her pubic mound, the same pink color as the inside of her mouth, is her dick: not overly enormous, but definitely not small enough to pass off as an oversized clit, either. Soft, it's only about two inches long: hard, a full six inches.

She remembers Gran's face when the doctor had suggested reassignment surgery for Rey when she'd hit puberty and what she had thought was an oversized clitoris had dropped into a penis. "You want to do _what_?" she'd spluttered.

"Mum, it's not a large surgery at all," the doctor had hastened to explain. "We'll remove the structure of the incorrect genitals and construct the tissue into a clitoris: your granddaughter will be sterile, but she'll live an easier life with the blockers and—"

"I must have misheard you," Gran had said, steely-eyed. "I thought you said _incorrect:_ my granddaughter was made perfectly as she is and if you lay a hand on her to meddle with what God has made you'll have _me_ to answer to, young man."

Rey had been in tears on the way home, convinced that her abnormality was why her parents had left her, sure that she would never amount to anything, and Gran had taken her by the shoulders and said "I don't want to hear you say the word abnormal again. You aren't abnormal in the slightest, child. You are perfect the way you are."

Well, Gran might have thought so, but the world had been a nightmare. Rey can still remember the first time she took her pants off in front of a boy she liked in high school. He'd been a perfectly nondescript beta, and she'd thought she was safe: he'd screamed and tried to hit her, shouting that she was a _trap_ before his big brother, an alpha, had heard the commotion, barged in, scented her, and attacked on instinct.

Rey's fingers trace the scar on her cheek. _He tried to cut me with that stupid pocketknife,_ she remembers, _and I knocked him out with that imitation Ming vase their mother had gotten scammed into buying._ She'd had to change schools. Worth it.

Her phone buzzes. It's Ben. _How was work?_

She texts back. _Same as ever. How are you feeling?_

The blue text bubble pops up. _Like I'm going insane. Again._

Rey frowns. _Were the last couple as bad as the first?_ They hadn't talked about it, not really, but every time he came back to work from his sick leave he just seemed drained, with dark circles under his eyes.

_Yes._

Shit. _Shit._ Rey gnaws at her lip. She wonders if she should ask to come over. They don't _have_ to have sex, but she could at least help him get liquids down and make sure he doesn't hurt himself. _You're tempting fate, dummy,_ she thinks in the back of her mind.

Her thumbs move across the screen. _Are you going to be okay?_

The text bubble appears, disappears, appears. _Don't know. If I asked you to come over would you regret it?_

Rey's breath feels punched out of her lungs. _Not in the slightest_ , she texts back as fast as she can. _I just want to make sure you're in your right mind if you ask me._

His answer dings back up on the screen. _Don't think I'm exactly in my right mind now. Sweating up a storm._

She takes a very deep breath, prays to whatever god is listening that she's playing the right card, and texts him back: _Six inches._

There's no reply at first, and she's afraid for a minute she's overstepped her boundaries, but then the text bubble pops back up. _U've measured??_

Ben must be losing it. He never abbreviates. _I can send a picture if you want._ After all, she's already nude.

_Please. Yes._

Rey taps the camera open and poses in front of her mirror, hoping desperately that he'll like what he sees. She's still hard just thinking about seeing him, and she twists slightly at the waist, trying to give an illusion of a more conventionally feminine body before muttering at herself and trying again, a plainly straightforward photo of herself, one hand on her waist. She takes the picture, eyes it up, and presses SEND.

It's a full excruciating five minutes before Ben texts her back. _Pls come over. Now._

 _Omw_ , she texts back, grabbing the first shirt she can find and a pair of leggings in the clean pile on her bed.

*

Ben hears the door open.

Rather, Ben hears the door open but doesn't give a shit about who might be coming into the unlocked door of his apartment, because he's treading dangerously close to fantasizing about being gangbanged by four alpha women who all look like Rey in his head, and hey, if he's about to be set upon and ravished, he might as well enjoy it.

"Ben?"

Then he scents her. Full, rich: floral and spice and earth, like sunlight pouring into his nose. Ben jerks to a sitting position, but the pressure on the tender parts between his legs makes him lurch sideways and bring his knees up to his chest. "Rey?" he croaks, unable to believe it's really her.

She appears in the doorway to his bedroom, eyes traveling over his curled-up body. "Hello. You—you really are a mess," she says, her eyes dilating a little. "Did you eat?"

"Yes," he forces out, trying to squeeze his eyes shut. "Don't. Don't go." It's not exactly a lie: he's eaten at some point in the past twenty-four hours but he can't remember when.

"I'm not going anywhere," she says firmly.

God, her scent is so _strong._ "You're not. Blockers." Why does his tongue feel like it's twice its normal size?

"No—I, I rushed out of the flat and didn't have time to put any on—" Rey looks discomfited. "Should I leave? Is it too much?"

" _No_ ," Ben barks, and his fingers dig into the sheets. "No, no, don't go, _stay_ —" His voice cracks, and he buries his face in the duvet in shame. Who does he think he _is,_ ordering his alpha around— _not your alpha, not your partner_ , says the tiny part of his brain that's still clinging to reason. "Sorry—"

"I'll stay," she says quickly. "I promise. As long as I can."

A sob tears its way out of his throat. "You'll help me?"

"Yes," Rey tells him. "Anything. Anything you need."

Ben pulls his head out of the duvet. "I want. To. See you." He'd gotten that nude she'd sent and rubbed one out so hard his calf had cramped.

She gnaws at her bottom lip and nods, then strips off her shirt, exposing her upper half to him. She's not wearing a bra. Ben whimpers aloud and fights to not shove a hand between his legs: she's lean and muscular and has almost no tits to speak of and every single inch of her is _beautiful_. "I'll go get you some water," she says softly, and leaves, Ben's eyes glued to the deeply incised muscles in her back.

 _She has to leave or we're going to have sex,_ he thinks, mounting anticipation and dread warring in his belly. _She can't leave or I'll lose my mind. I have to do what she says. I'll do anything. Anything at all._

Rey comes back in with a glass of water. "Take this," she orders, "and drink it. You look dehydrated. Isn't Iris working? On your phone?"

He takes the glass and gulps down the contents, handing it back to her empty. "Yes. It is. I'm just not. Paying attention."

"Well, you should. Else you'll get dehydrated." She shakes her head, and terror grips him: _she's disappointed, she's going to leave, I wasn't good enough._

"I—I'll pay attention to it from here on out," he manages.

"Good." He relaxes, relieved, as she cocks her head and reaches down to the carpet. "What's _this_?" Ben looks up, and Rey's holding…

"That. That's. Another toy I bought off the internet." Why can't the ground swallow his idiotic horny ass up? "The first one was cheap and didn't—didn't—"

"I think I know." She turns the item back and forth in her hands: about five inches long, slender, silicone, with a switch on the end that activates a motor designed to inflate the bottom half into a rough imitation of a knot. "These things can never get it right. You'd have to buy one from Bad Dragon to really get the feel of a knot, but those are hundreds of dollars."

"I wouldn't know the difference," he says stiffly, embarrassed.

"Sure you do. You're still having six-day heats. Nothing like a real knot to take the edge off a heat and finish it quick." She presses her mouth into a thin line and blushes. "Sorry. You don't want—I shouldn't be explaining your own heats to you—"

She could have dumped paint on him and told him to dance like Bozo the Clown and he would have done it all and begged for more. "It's fine. I just—" An image pops into his mind, an image of Rey using that fucking toy on him, and he goes dizzy for a moment. "I c-couldn't get it in. I'm not. Sure. I'm using it right. You. You might have to show me."

Her eyes go so black he almost flinches, but then she's leaning forward, right in his personal space and giving off that delicious smell of hers: roses and warmth and sweet spicy earth. "Oh, might I?" she asks, voice gone very soft.

Ben can't breathe. "Please," he whispers.

Rey leans back. "Okay. Pants off." He obeys with the speed of lightning, not even caring that someone's seeing him naked for the first time. _Please_ , he thinks, lying on his back with his fists clenched, _please just fuck me, just get it over with._

But she doesn't. She kneels beside him, and trails her fingers from his shoulders to his chest, the pads of her fingers rubbing lightly at his swollen nipples. He tries not to choke on his own saliva as he fingers dip lower, brushing across his stomach, his hips, his thighs: she brings her head down close and presses a soft kiss to his sensitive lower belly, which tickles slightly and makes him squirm. "Ah-h-ah, Rey—"

"I've got you," she assures him, and rubs her thumbs ever so gently down across the apex of his pubic mound, her skin hot on his sad little dick. "You're _beautiful_ , Ben. Really."

Nobody has ever in his life told him he's beautiful. "I—"

Another gentle rub against his nipples shuts him up and leaves him struggling for words. "You are. Shh. You're perfect. Can I play with this?" She touches his dick gently, looking up.

"Uh-huh," he manages, fists clenched tight. No woman has _ever_ touched his dick before, and he shudders as Rey's fingers take him gently and rub. Up, down, up down, her thumb rubs across the tip firmly and his hips lift off the bed as he cries out and more slick gushes out between his legs. _Embarrassing, shameful, fuck me—_

"Shh," she says, hands trembling slightly as she takes the toy and lays it on the bed by his hip. "You're so wet for me. Oh my _god_ , babe. Does it hurt? Let me see."

He's coming undone. He can't help it. Ben spreads his legs and lets her see everything, and the little intake of air she sucks past her lips is the loudest thing he's ever heard. He leaks more fluid out, staining the sheets, and she swipes her fingers through it, rubbing them together. _Please,_ he wants to beg, _help me,_ but his words are locked behind his throat.

"You're making a mess, huh," she croons, reaching back down and stroking his inner thighs where they're their softest. "I'll take care of it. I'll take care of you. We'll go nice and slow and you're gonna be so good for me."

A high pitched whimper escapes his mouth, and he rolls over, pulling one thigh up to his chest at her direction. Her hand comes down, stroking and soothing around the swollen, overheated flesh between his legs, and he stuffs the duvet into his mouth, frantically trying to stave off the horrible noises he _knows_ he's going to make. His nipples are tingling, oversensitive and warm, and he silently begs his body not to do _that_ again.

"You can make noise for me, babe," she murmurs, tugging at the fabric. "It's all right. It's just me."

He pulls the fabric out of his mouth, eager to obey and please, and that's when she gently rubs her thumb across his dick again and he lets out a noise that probably could have broken a window a mile away. " _Rey_ —"

She's only galvanized by the noises. "That's it. Talk to me. I wanna hear how bad you need it."

Tears fill his eyes and words finally spill out like a flood. " _Please_ , R-Rey, I need it so bad, need, need you, I've never, I don't, I don't know what I _want—_ "

"Okay," she says softly, stroking his belly. "Okay. Trust me. Fingers first. Then the toy. Okay?"

The toy. He'd almost forgotten about the toy. "Okay," he wheezes, and Rey is so careful, so gentle: he doesn't deserve this, or her, or any of it. Her thumb pulls him open and her other index finger slides inside him and he freezes, trembling as his hot flesh contracts and pulls at her, slick and tight around her fingers.

She gives him time to get acclimated, gently pumping her wrist, before asking, "You want another?"

" _Yes_ ," he sobs, and shakes like a leaf as her middle finger joins her first, pushing him open wider. Ben's right leg contracts and locks, his toes curling, and he hears something tear: it's probably a sheet. Her fingers feel enormous, even though she can't possibly have hands as big as that: he dimly registers that she keeps her nails trimmed extremely short and thanks all the deities that have ever lived for that as her fingers pump at him gently. As he adjusts, though, it's still not enough, and he lets his head flop back in frustration.

"You want a third?" Rey prompts.

"Hhhokay," he stammers, and goes rigid as her ring finger joins the other two. "God, God, dammit, goddammit, wh-why are your f-fucking fingers so _nnngh_ _big_ —"

"I'll have you _know_ ," says Rey, pumping gently and curling her fingers inside him, "my ring size is a six. You're just a bit snug." She does something with her fingers that sends sparks up his spine and makes his pelvis lift off the bed, and then she pulls them away from him, patting him on the thigh. "You want the toy now?"

Ben's still trying to collect himself and not fall to pieces. "Yes, toy, the, I want, the toy—"

Rey picks it up and rubs it on his skin, gathering up the slick on his skin and spreading it around the silicone. She's very resourceful, Rey: not one to let anything to go to waste. "Just relax," she whispers, petting his head with her other hand. He practically collapses, limp against the bed, and Rey nudges the toy against his opening, pushing it in gently.

It… it goes in. Ben groans, feeling the thing slip inside him with hardly any resistance, and instinctively goes still, thighs trembling as Rey works it as deep as it can go. "Feels. Big," he manages.

Rey pats him with her free hand. "You want me to fuck you with it or just go straight to this little button here?"

If he has to lie here for another second he's going to lose his mind. "Knot. Do the. Switch. _Please_." She flicks the switch, and there's a buzzing vibration that makes him jerk before the silicon starts to swell at the base, just nearly sealing him shut and finally, _finally_ easing the burn a little. He relaxes, tears streaking out of his full eyes and staining the sides of his face, the bridge of his nose. _Oh, god,_ is all he can think for a minute, on a broken record in his brain, _oh god, oh god._

Rey runs her hand across his back in long even strokes. "I can leave it there. Do you want something to eat?"

"No," he says, eyes shutting. "Just. Can you." He's embarrassed to even ask, but he wants it like nothing else right now. "Can you stay close to me?"

"Sure," she whispers, and lies down beside him, her chest pressed to his back, one arm draped across his side. Lying like this, he can almost pretend that it's _her_ locked inside him, calming his ragged nerves. Ben lets himself relax, and slowly drifts off into a restless half-sleep.

*

Rey is more turned on than she's ever been in her fucking life.

Once Ben's asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly, she disentangles herself from the man and tiptoes into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water with shaking hands. The suppressants she had been newly prescribed would keep her from going into rut around _any_ alphas, but she almost wishes she wasn't on them. Just to see. Just to—

 _Don't be stupid,_ she thinks to herself as she gulps liquid down. _One of you has to be responsible. You can't do that if you're humping the sofa and fucking him into a wall._

He's got maybe twenty minutes of sleep ahead of him, so Rey takes the time to get the living room set up. She doesn't fight her instinct to build a nest, since that's a constructive instinct and not an irrational one. Ben doesn't seem to have a lot of extra blankets, but she finds a spare duvet in the cabinet in the hall and lays it out across the sofa, draws the blinds, makes a sandwich or two, and moves the sharp-edged coffee table to the far end of the room. It won't do to have him fall and hurt himself.

As she's considering whether or not lighting candles would be a fire hazard, there's a soft padding step behind her, and she turns to see Ben in the doorway to his bedroom, rubbing his eye with one hand. He's still naked, and he's fully aroused again, and he also doesn't seem to realize that the toy is still wedged between his legs. "Rey?" he asks.

"Hi. Awake already? Do you want some food?"

"No," he says, and takes an awkward step forward, eyes fixed on her.

"You want me to take that dildo out of you?"

Ben looks down, confused, and looks back up. "Oh. Yeah."

"You okay?" Rey crosses over and kneels, flipping the switch to deflate the artificial knot and easing the toy out. "Seem a little disoriented." That _can_ be a side effect of heat, but she's not sure what a typical one is like for him.

"Hnnngh," says Ben, and she looks up to see him staring down at her, past his swollen little cock, focused directly on her mouth.

"Oh," she says, and turns her attention to his dick. "I see. You want me to—"

" _Please_ ," he begs, and so she does, pressing her mouth to his groin and licking him from base to tip, sucking and pulling as carefully as she can. He's small enough to fit perfectly in her mouth, and he tastes heavily of musk and slick. Rey can almost taste his scent: dark, enticing, sweet.

"Mmm," she mumbles, tongue flicking at the underside.

"Hhhhh _uuuuunnnghhh_ ," Ben groans in response, knees about to buckle. "R— _Rey_ —"

She's so hard she's almost leaking. Thank God she left her pants on. "Couch," she orders, removing her mouth. "You're going to collapse."

He drags himself over and lies down, legs shamelessly spread wide, exposing his flushed and swollen undercarriage. "Do—do it again—" Both Ben's hands are trembling, and he's fixed her with a wide, begging gaze.

"All right," Rey tells him, settling gently down between his legs. "This—I'll try to take the edge off. Just a little."

"Will you fuck me after?" he chokes, hair stuck to his forehead.

Her dick twitches. "I. I might. If you're very good." _Oh my god, oh my god, he wants me to fuck him? It has to be the heat, there's no way._ "And if you're sure that's what you want."

Ben yelps a little as her mouth lowers back onto his body, lapping at the slick flesh between his legs, one finger circling the tip of his cock. "Just—wanted—I've, I've wanted it for months, _please_ —"

"I'm not sure you're in your right mind," she says, lifting her head and pressing a couple of open-mouthed kisses to his thighs.

He shoots her a grouchy look. "Didn't stop y' from—from, from using your hands, _oh_ —" His eyes flutter back into his head, and he flushes deep rose as she works him quicker with her hand and mouth, until he's cresting his peak and shouting out her name into the living room's still air as his body bucks and strains and goes still and slack.

In the stillness that follows, as he's still wrung out on the sofa, Rey raises her head. "That's because," she informs him, "I'm not penetrating you with my dick yet. There are degrees to this sort of thing, you know. You consented to me coming over and me using my hands, and the toy. But now I don't know if it's the heat talking or if—"

"It's not," he slurs, raising his head and focusing on her with glassy eyes. "Christ. No. It's not. What. What do you want. I'll do anything. I'll be good. _Shit._ " He blinks, and he looks a little more lucid. "Liked you from the second I saw you. Electric kettles."

Rey has to laugh. "Yeah, the best relationships are forged over kitchen appliances."

He offers a lopsided smile, showing his crooked white teeth, but it fades. "If you don't—if you don't want to fuck me, that's—I'd understand. I'm not. I'm not most people's type—"

"You are absolutely my type," she says firmly, and doesn't miss the glow that dawns over his face. "I thought, I thought _you_ didn't want to, um, sleep with me, because you didn't—you know, you didn't call me up for the past couple of months, and—"

"Oh. Jesus." He scrubs a shaking hand over his eyes. "No. I didn't—I don't, I don't really, um, I've never been intimate with anyone, uh, sexually, and I thought—I thought you might not want the bother of dealing with a—me."

"You are _not_ a bother," Rey says, her belly turning cartwheels.

Ben blinks up at her, slow understanding spreading over his features. "You… you _do_ want to…"

"Yes. _Yes_." Her mouth feels dry. "More than anything. I've been losing my mind for the past three months and having you here is—it's—"

He lets his head flop down. "Oh, God. I'm sorry."

"You," says Rey, jabbing him in the side with her finger, "are a goddamn cocktease, and if you say you're sorry one more time—"

Ben grins. "You'll throw me out the window?"

"I'll—I'll—" She splutters for a moment, unable to think of a thing to say, then leans forward and grabs his face, planting a kiss on his mouth. Ben's reaction is extremely positive: he practically melts into her, mouth softening beneath hers as he parts his lips, lets her push her tongue into his mouth, and brings his hands up to cling to her waist.

"It's—it's okay," he stammers as she pulls away. "I'm—did I do something wrong?"

Rey's struggling with the waistband of her leggings. "No, no, I'm just taking my pants off—"

"Oh—"

"Just, you just stay where you are." She rids herself of the clingy pants and throws them behind her, and his eyes go immediately to her crotch and remain fixed there, his lips parted.

Ben's not looking at her like some pervert, and he's not looking at her with disgust: he looks hungry for her, like he can't wait for her to touch him. "Oh," he repeats, and tears his eyes away from her to look up at her face. She can smell arousal all over him, rolling off him like fog, intensifying to a maddening degree…

…and then he's looking away from her, curling up in a ball on the sofa and burying his head in his arm, his breath coming in short, sharp huffs. _Is he crying?_ Rey thinks incredulously, standing there naked. "Ben?" she tries.

"I—" He shivers, and more slick stains his thighs. "I'm s—I don't, I—"

She pats his shoulder ineffectually. "Hey, hey. Look up, look at me. Whatever it is, it's all right—"

Ben sits up almost violently, taking in a gasp of air. "It's _not_ all right, it's not; I want you and it scares the fucking _shit_ out of me—"

"Shh," she murmurs, trying to be soothing. "Hey. Don't be scared. There's nothing to be afraid of. D'you want me to put my pants back on?"

" _No_ , no, don't, don't—" Ben grabs her by the waist hard enough to bruise, fingers trembling, and she can see he's almost hysterical, with tears in his eyes. Coupled with his very obvious arousal, it's a confusing picture. "I'm just, I'm just—"

Rey strokes his hands where they cling to her body. "Steady on. Deep breaths. Calm down and tell me what's wrong."

*

Ben buries his head in the crook of Rey's bare neck and shoulder and tries his hardest to collect his thoughts as his body aches around the absence he's come to revel in and hate at once.

His mental processes around sex for the past twenty years have gone something like so: he can't have sex with a woman like most men have sex with women, therefore he does not seek out sexual interactions. He could have told himself he wasn't interested in sex at all, but that's patently untrue, and especially more so since he's met Rey. In the interim, however, he's managed to soak up enough of what Rey calls "shit in society" to make him intensely guarded and self-loathing. Somewhere deep down, Ben had hoped that being in the middle of a heat would force that all down somewhere he couldn't reach it should he ask Rey to sleep with him, but no: it was not to be, and okay, maybe he _was_ weaponizing his own biological vulnerability to get himself laid, but he would have never been able to let himself relax otherwise.

So he holds on to Rey, his whole body wailing with the closeness of her, and tries to find the words to explain all of this. She listens, and she pets his hair with the utmost tenderness, and by the time he's done stammering out his half-baked speech, he's drowning in her scent, needy and burning against her cool skin.

Then, Rey moves him, and he lets her arrange him on the sofa: on his back, propped up against the back of the sofa, thighs apart, his soaked core leaving a wet track on the suede of his sofa. He's cold all over without her touch, except between his legs, and he thinks he might be sick if she doesn't hold him again, but she kneels between his knees, her great big eyes fixed on his.

"You," she tells him gently, stroking his thighs, "are perfect."

"I'm—not—" He can't think straight, not with her touching him again, but he definitely doesn't see perfection in the mirror: he sees a mixed-up joke of a man who _should_ have been born an alpha, or at least someone with a—

"You're _perfect_ ," Rey insists again, and moves her hands up, her fingers brushing his joke of a cock. "This is perfect for my mouth, and _this_ —" she slips her thumbs south, rubbing along his folds, and he fights a cry at the touch, "is perfect for my fingers and my cock. I want you to say it."

He has just enough sanity left to ask, "If I do, will you fuck me?"

Rey flicks him in the left nipple and he yelps, squirming as his tender chest tingles like it's fallen asleep and thin milk dribbles down his chest. "I said, _say it_ ," she orders.

Ben shuts his eyes in shame. "I'm… I'm perfect."

She leans forward and licks the milk off his chest, and tears well up in his eyes unexpectedly. He jerks his hips toward her and stifles a groan as she whispers, "Are you going to take me nicely?"

"Yes," he chokes. "Please, yes, I'll do anything—"

Both Rey's hands slip up his body as she raises herself up to kiss him again (he can taste the milk on her, and that's so strange and new that he pushes his tongue into her mouth for more) and he reaches down, brushing his fingers through the soft brown fuzz between her legs and tentatively wrapping his hand around her cock. "You can touch me," she whispers in between kisses. "Go on. Look at it." So he does: he kisses her and leans back to look.

It's not quite like a man's penis. He's seen enough naked men in changing rooms and in porn to know what that looks like: hers is not as big, a pretty rosy color at the top half where the skin is thinner, thicker-skinned on the bottom half, and pale pink down where the millions of capillaries at the base are designed to lock her and her mate together in a copulatory tie. She hadn't been lying about the size, either. So Rey was right: this is a woman's penis, and he has a man's—

"Do you want it in you?" she's whispering against his temple, and he swallows and nods, and she's inching up, pulling him forward by the knees, and the tip of her is nudging against his—

" _Rey_ ," he begs, and she slowly, _slowly_ slips in, Ben shuddering all the way until she's seated fully inside him. The angle is awkward, but she's _perfect,_ absolutely perfect and full and snug inside him and he shakes like he'll never be warm again as she tugs him off the sofa, taking the duvet with her, and gets him on the floor, all nested in the comforter and trembling.

Rey raises her head and gives him a long look, her lips parted and loose strands of her hair bouncing around her cheeks. "I'm," she says, breathless and flushed, "I'm going to m-move now. Are you. Is that."

"O-okay," he gasps, tears tracking down the sides of his temples and into his ears. "Okay. I'm okay."

Slowly, she begins to cant her hips, bringing herself down on her forearms, one on each side of his body, to brace herself over his chest. Her face barely comes to his throat, but he clings to her waist, crying out with every thrust as it chases away the mad burning in his body and finally, _finally_ she drags him as close as she can, and Ben goes as still as stone as the knot swells and locks them together, and at last the heat ebbs away, replaced by an exhausted stupor and deep satisfaction.

He sleeps, Rey's small body stretched out across him as if to hold him down, to anchor him to the earth below them.

*

They couple twice more that evening: once on the bed, and once on the couch, Ben on his hands and knees with his thighs spread for her.

He says _I love you_ , _I don't think I'd be a good father, but I—I love you,_ and she hesitates in her movements for the briefest second, then pins him to the sofa with her hips, biting lightly at his ear.

 _I love you too_ , she whispers.

*

Ben is a wonderful father, as it turns out.

He cradles their twins close in bed at night for the first five months, exhausted from the ordeal of birth, his body gone to softness and stretch marks, and he sings to them. A boy, and a girl; their two children. Luke and Hanna. They have identical triangular mouths, identical blinking blue eyes, identical noses, and identical dark mops of soft thin hair. They are perfect in every way.

Rey takes Luke to change his nappy and looks up at her husband, who's mesmerized with his daughter, singing Beatles songs softly down at her, and she thinks: _I truly am the luckiest woman alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was MARKEDLY different from my usual fanfic shenanigans. i beg all of your forgiveness lmao


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